Gotham spent five seasons earning itself the honor as arguably the most wonderfully bonkers and original superhero series on television, but the era of Gotham has come to an end. The Fox show's series finale airs April 25 and is tasked with both tying up loose ends and setting the stage for the Bat-adventure to get into gear, even if that adventure will take place off-screen.
Sadly, the stars of Gotham will leave their characters behind barring the very unlikely announcement of a sequel series or surprise Season 6. Several of the actors who made Gotham as much fun as it became spoke with CinemaBlend about the end and what they'll miss the most.
David Mazouz
Back when Gotham premiered in 2014, David Mazouz was a 13-year-old kid tasked with played the young version of the man who would become one of the most iconic superheroes in the history of the genre. At the time, it was difficult to say how he would be able to handle Bruce Wayne in the long run or even if he would hit the right growth spurts to make it believable that he would become Batman.
Well, David Mazouz wasted no time in proving that he could deliver nuance as Bruce Wayne and action as the future Batman, and the series finale gave Mazouz the opportunity to wear the cowl as the Dark Knight despite the episode jumping ten years into the future. The time jump resulted in a recast Selina Kyla; Mazouz stayed on to play the older version of his character. Speaking with CinemaBlend's Nick Venable at the 2019 winter TCA panels, Mazouz said this about moving on from Gotham:
The easiest aspect about leaving Gotham is knowing that I gave it my all and knowing that I'm always and forever going to be ridiculously proud of what we've produced here over these past five years. Just walking away with that and kind of going into the next chapter, I'm just so happy about that. I know that the passion that went into this show is so great. Danny [Cannon] said it at the panel, but everybody kind of had this thirst for creativity. Everybody, every single person that was hired, had this thirst to be the best at what they do. And it really shows in everything, in every little detail, from the costumes to the set decoration to the acting. It's perfectly on point and perfectly creative.
There's really no denying that Gotham is immensely creative. Not only was it a very original take on telling the origin story of Batman and his city as it was when he felt the need to don the cape and the cowl; it also evolved as time went on. What began as something akin to a police procedural that just so happened to feature some extra crazy criminals with iconic comic book names turned into something unpredictable, dramatic, hilarious, and completely unique.
David Mazouz shared what he considers the show's greatest accomplishment, and fans all over will undoubtedly agree with him. He also revealed his feelings looking back at the show and what it pulled off over the years:
Anybody who's ever seen an ounce of Gotham knows there's never a dull moment in the show, and I'm just so proud of that. I'm so proud of that product. And because of that, you know, I'm grateful for the experience and the connections that I've made, and I'm happy that I will always have them with me in whatever I do next.
In a perfect world, whatever David Mazouz does next would involve playing Bruce Wayne in the next stage of his life, and I feel like there are going to be blanks in the timeline between the end of the game-changing penultimate episode and the series finale that could totally use a sequel series. Fans can always dream, right? Mazouz did say he'd be game to play Batman again in the future.
Ben McKenzie
Gotham may have been the origin story for Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, but the real main character of the series was always Jim Gordon. The soldier-turned-cop started out as somebody unwilling to bend in his principles, developed into somebody who understood that protecting and serving in Gotham City meant breaking the rules sometimes, and reached the point where he would just acknowledge Riddler tricks as something in Gotham that you kinda just get used to.
Actor Ben McKenzie crafted a Jim Gordon different from others that have made it to the big and small screen before, and not just because he didn't wear the iconic Jim Gordon mustache, with only a couple of exceptions (one of which will be in the finale). Here's what he'll miss about Gotham:
Honestly I'll miss so much of this cast. I'll miss all of this cast. Donal [Logue] every day brought a joy and intelligence and a humor that's really hard to find in a partner. It's hard to go through five years on a show with someone you work with every single day, and there has never been a disagreement, never been a fight. Never been in a moment of weirdness because...it's all him. It's not me; I'm a real pain in the ass. But he's a lovely guy and a teammate. Um, so Donal, I'll miss. And Robin [Lord Taylor] and Cory [Michael Smith] and David [Mazouz]. I would say I would miss Morena [Baccarin], except I see her every day anyway. [laughs]
Ben McKenzie is going to miss the cast, especially Donal Logue, who spent five years more or less by his side as Harvey Bullock. Many cops circulated in and out of the GCPD throughout the five seasons, but Jim and Harvey always came back to each other. As McKenzie says, though, at least he doesn't have to miss Morena Baccarin, who played Lee Thompkins! McKenzie and Baccarin married in real life back in 2017.
Cameron Monaghan
Who could have guessed back in Season 1 that guest star Cameron Monaghan would go on to play not one but two of Gotham's most iconic villains? He was the show's perfect candidate to become the Joker from the moment that he first cackled his terrifyingly perfect laugh as Jerome Valeska, and he only got better when Jerome's secret twin brother Jeremiah was transformed into the new Valeska villain.
Jeremiah got just about everything but the Joker name in Season 5, including the dip in the glowing green vat at Ace Chemicals after a fight with Bruce Wayne. And that wasn't even his last go at playing a Joker-esque baddie! Cameron Monaghan had a different point of view on the end of the show than both David Mazouz and Ben McKenzie, saying this:
Beyond working with our very talented cast and crew, I think that it was just an amazing personal journey to be able to touch a mythos that I am very much personally invested in, to leave my own personal stamp, and to do it many different ways with many different variations. To be able to reinvent this character has been really cool, and to do that multiple times is even cooler. So to be able to just touch on Batman and Joker mythos at all, it's just ridiculously cool. And I think that's the thing that I'm left with the most now that we're done with it: it was an incredible opportunity and something that is very rare for any actor to be able to do.
Will Jeremiah ever get the official "Joker" name before the finale credits roll? Only the April 25 finale will tell for sure. Whether he does or not, however, I think Cameron Monaghan deserves to be ranked among the best of the best all-time portrayers of the Clown Prince of Crime. That said, Monaghan did reveal that there's one thing he won't miss about playing Jeremiah Valeska: the makeup process.
No, it's definitely not the makeup chair. Ugh. Yeah, man, the final look with this character took about almost five hours to apply. And I literally watched the entirety of Godfather I, II and III, Goodfellas. I think we went through the entire Scorsese filmography. So definitely not the make up chair, although I do very much enjoy working with those people and they're very good at their jobs.
Gotham's makeup team may be great, but hours in the makeup chair weren't what made Gotham special to Cameron Monaghan. Hey, at least he had time to enjoy some Martin Scorsese classics. Not many people can say they got to do that on the job!
Robin Lord Taylor
Last but certainly not least, Robin Lord Taylor chatted with CinemaBlend ahead of the series finale to share his thoughts on the series, including about what happened to Edward the Dog after the pooch's semi-cliffhanger ending in the penultimate episode. As Penguin, Taylor rose from the lowly status as Fish Mooney's umbrella boy to criminal kingpin of Gotham City, although not without his fair share of entertaining setbacks.
As for what Robin Lord Taylor will miss most about Gotham, his feelings echo those of Ben McKenzie's:
I'll miss the people. I'll really miss the people. I just think that, for the finale, I got to be in one of my final scenes with Cory Michael Smith. That's just an example of the friendships I've made and the chemistry that I found with people. It really just feels like a family. And yeah, I just don't know if you can ever really find that again. It was really, really special.
Robin Lord Taylor will also miss the people he worked with over the years on Gotham, and he too gave a special mention of his frequent on-screen enthusiastic partner/mortal enemy/reluctant ally, depending on the season. Taylor and Cory Michael Smith as Penguin and Riddler put the "fun" in dysfunctional, and it's only fitting that both bad guys got snazzy suit upgrades for the grand finale. Would Gotham's finale really feel right if Penguin and Riddler weren't causing trouble side-by-side once more?
Find out exactly what kind of trouble they cause for Jim Gordon and Co. (including, finally, Batman) when Gotham's series finale airs on Thursday, April 25 at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. Jeremiah will be back in the mix somehow, and Selina will look very different, so it is certainly not an episode to be missed.
